Putin Says Russia Will Have High-Speed Rail by 2018 World Cup

Well Zach, you got that slightly wrong. Putin verbally closed the deal for HSR with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on a Siemens Velaro I.C.E ride between Hamburg and Berlin in 1999.

Russian Rail and Siemen dropped 5 billion Euros in R & D – to make the “Velaro” “winterproof”, i.e. safely running at speeds of up to 300 KMH- in temperatures down to – 50 ° celsius where “normal” metals in the wheels, springs, and carriages would get brittle and break up. A lot of R & D money went into Thyssen Krupp developing the right alloys that could stand up to 300 kmh wind chill factors at minus 50° celsius. There was extensive wind tunnel testing at an aviation wind tunnel facility in North Rhein-Westphalia simulating those conditions.

The Russian version of the Siemens I.C.E. velaro has insulated aluminum cars- with dual pane vacuum insulated windows- on those special for Russian winter condition built trucks. (The same tech is going into the Alstom trains being built for Finnish Rail.)

The name of Russian H.S.R. is “The Sapsan”- named after the Russian National Bird- the Sapsan Hawk- which is the fastest flying bird in the world when it folds its wings to attack its prey.

The Sapsan has been in service between St. Petersburg and Moscow, since about 2006- built in Germany. it does the 600 Km trip in Russia´s most heavilly travelled corridor in less than three hours, including travelling at “safe” regularly scheduled speeds of up to 250 KMH on a brand new, specially dedicated to HRS line like you find in France and Germany.

The Velaro ICE 4 version adapted to “winterproofed” Sapsan- will have its cars built by Siemens Russia, with Siemens Germany and Thyssen-Krupp delivering the special wheels,

trucks, springs, and advanced brake energy recycling motors

Russia already has its HRS- it is merely building out its HSR grid to rival that of Germany and France.

There are some very interesting anomalies there. After WW II, tThe Soviet Union had the problem of fast troop and freight movement into Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria, and East Germany… which are all “standard gauge” as opposed to the Russian – Scandinavian “wide gauge”. So, the “successor states” of Russia, Belorussia, and Ukrania- also have “dedicated military standard gauge high speed lines” – connecting up to the E.U. rail system. (There´s an excellent German Rail pullman service that runs once a day- from Amsterdam to Moscow, non-changeover service. A fun way of getting from Munich to Moscow is taking the ICE to Berlin, and the overnight to Moscow)
There will be some related fast service on thse “standard gauge lines”- pulled by find Siemens Taurus Locomotives- with Russian built variations of the Austrian “railjet” cars. This is a medium-speed H.S.R. travelling at 220 KMH- about 137.5 m.p.h.- which needs no special winterproofing modification like the Sapsan when it travels slower scheduled speeds of 100 m.p.h. during the very cold winter months- these will connect up with Belorussian and Ukranian cities heading into Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The Siemens Taurus set a world record electric locomotive speed record about 6 years ago on a new I.C.E. stretch that had not gone into service… 357 kmh (223 m.p.h.)in two way speed trials

Bombardier-Adtrans is also building out versions of these trainsets. Their big new workhorse locomotive is also state of the art- and brake energy recycling.

Of course, the Chinese and Europeans are also cooperating in the build out of fast rail and high speed rail to Istanbul. (paralled by HVDC transmission lines, gas and oil pipelines, and a four to six lane “Interstate” super highway. From Istanbul, the Nabucco Magistral will swing south to S.E. Turkey. One spur will head straight south to Baghdad, Irag, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates- ( all the way to a freight re-loading facility at Jebel Ali in Dhubai.) (Container freight in both directions will be re-loaded there) The far east spur will extend to Teheran and swing north through Turkmenistan, across Tdjakistan connecting up with Chinese rail, power, and gas lines.

Developments in EurAsian rail are much different and further along than most Americans would like to admit.

As stated, Russia already has HSR on its most densely travelled stretch between St. Petersburg and Moscow which has been in service for quite a while. What Putin is now doing, is building out an HSR “Sapsan” grid to rival that of China, Germany, and France which will be in place by 2018. That is still ten years ahead of the HSR systems projected for the U.S. East and West coasts.

I advisedly note that the Sapsan -Velaro could probably never have been realized in the U.S.. The 5 billion Euro R & D costs that went into “winterproofing” the Siemens Velaro I.C.E. for minus 50° celsius operation would have killed the project in its tracks. But, the deal went down between then Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and Vladimir Putin in 1998 or 99, and now it has been up and running for over 5 years.
The HSR Sapsan is already up and running on the main St. Petersburg to Moscow line…
It is just going to be massively built out like the German and French system. Great system. It is a a triumph of European electric rail engineering from a great electric company that has been in business for 165 years, and pioneered the art of electric rail in 1872.